I really didn’t mean to review this right after Harukana Receive, because I feel like I’m gonna repeat myself a lot, but execution, execution, execution.

Let me get one issue out of the way first – Major ran for six seasons in Japan without ever once touching North America, and that’s not the ideal situation to be in going into its sequel. While sports anime generally bomb over here unless they star hot sad boys (see Free!, Haikyu) so I understand the reasoning, a lot of the emotional beats of this show are tied to the viewer’s previous experience with the characters who appeared in the original. I really hope that Crunchyroll license-rescues the original Major series now that years have gone by and they can likely get the entire series for a lump sum.

With that out of the way, Major 2nd is still a perfectly acceptable entry into the genre that seems to be building up a foundation for another long-running franchise that I must say I’m eagerly awaiting. While its problems are certainly easy to pick out (the teammates beyond the main characters are paper-thin, it doesn’t look especially impressive, and Daigo is kind of a brat in the beginning) I can’t exactly say that it isn’t good just because it can’t live up to Big Windup!. The characters that we did get are interesting (I repeat that I like the idea of a sports show where the main character isn’t the prodigy and doesn’t even know what position he’s supposed to be in, I like that the actual prodigy character is kind of detached about the entire thing because baseball is just an excuse to hang out with his friends, and I like that the grumpy team ace clearly has a reason to be grumpy all the time), the story is mostly predictable but with a few really well-done twists in the final few episodes, and I appreciate the start-from-the-beginning approach that it would appear the predecessor went for as well, going from the very start of these characters’ baseball careers.

So, in the likely event of another season, I would like to see a plot that doesn’t force our main battery duo apart for a majority of the season, I would like to see Urabe return to the story, and I want to see a little more of Daigo’s father.

Final score: 7/10.